Ep 91: Not Under My Roof!

<p><a href="https://talkingtoteens.com/not-under-my-roof/">Click for full show notes, exercises, and parenting scripts from this episode</a></p><p><br>Every parent wants their teen to find love one day. But maybe not while the teen is under their roof! For teens in American, being sexually active is considered a health risk. While sex at any age can come with risk of disease, infection, or unwanted pregnancy, many parents avoid talking about it, preferring to dismiss any relationships formed in high school as temporary--maybe even a distraction to our teens success!</p><p><br></p><p>But are these well-intentioned efforts doing more harm than good? Certainly the chances of high school relationships lasting into adulthood are rather slim, but the consequences of denying that our teens are experiencing love and experimenting with sex are severe. The teen pregnancy birth rate in the US is around <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/about/index.htm#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20a%20total%20of,drop%20of%207%25%20from%202016.&amp;text=Birth%20rates%20fell%2010%25%20for,women%20aged%2018%E2%80%9319%20years.">19 per 1000 births</a>--compare that to a country like the Netherlands who have a teen pregnancy rate of around <a href="https://www.rutgers.international/sites/rutgersorg/files/PDF/RHRN-HLPF_A4leaflet_NL.pdf">4.5 per 1000 births</a>.  With similar access to contraception as well as comparable economic advantages, what is it America is doing wrong when it comes to teenage relationships? </p><p><br></p><p>Amy Schalet, author of <a href="https://amzn.to/3dneDal"><em>Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex</em></a>, offers our listeners a unique perspective this week: raised by American parents in the Netherlands, Schalet shares her personal, historical, and sociological insights from researching the two countries’ opposing approaches to teenage sexuality. Interestingly enough, this issue stems back to medicine, of all places. </p><p><br></p><p>In the United States, adolescent sex is viewed as